By Joan McDaniel April 4, 2014
Steps I Took To Regain My Health
This is a brief overview of the steps I took to get well. It is really the history of the reason I wrote the articles in this blog site. Each step I took to get well, I would write about.
When I got started I had a good case of Candida Brain Fog . But in spite of having a fuzzy hard to think and focus head, I had a blind determine drive to get well.
I remember being sick and my first steps. This review steps may be out-of-order. I used the dates the articles to reconstruct and jog my memory. Each article documented what I thought was important at the time. This is an overview only. For more detailed information on a particular subject search this site.
I was “flying by the seat of my pants” on my own autopilot. All I can say is, thank goodness for the Internet and the brave people who have talked about this condition before.
Developing a Plan and Getting in touch
When I finally got back home from the hospital, I was as weak as a new-born kitten. I didn’t really know where to start. It was obvious that the modern medical not only didn’t “feel my pain” they didn’t have a care or a clue on how I could get well again.
I got the feeling they were telling me —Your body was broken —- Just live with it —- but I had other ideas. I had been getting sicker over the years a day at a time and I had heard enough about “Just Live with it”.
The only real strength I had left was to sit, think and remember. I remembered my childhood. I remembered my upbringing especially my Grandparents early teaching.
Old School Teaching
I had been raised by what Is called “old School” thought. I may have had been adopted by my stepmother but her parents became my very own and close grandparents.
They were once farmers and knew the value of living off the land. They also had both spend some time as school teachers. My Grandfather was the local weather man in the Kansas town they grew up in. Because of his health they moved to a few houses away from ours. I was 6 or 7 at the time. I soon found myself spending more time at their house than I did in my own home.
My grandfather died when I was twelve but he gave me an excellent education and insight into just about everything. I spent my growing and learning years with him as we listening to the radio’s baseball game. I don’t remember any of the games but I listened to his every word. I also enjoyed my uncle Johnny. They where what I call wise.
My real fathers mother, my real grandmother was one of a kind. She came from Kentucky and had raised 13 children mostly on her own during the Great Depression. She was uneducated and lived off the land. All of the children except one lived to be my healthy aunts and uncles. From what I understand, she at that time never had two nickels to rub together (no real source of income).
The best way I have of describing her is using a character in Steinbeck’s famous book The Grapes of Wrath. The leading character Ma Joad exemplifies the type of strong character it took to keep a family together during those hard times. She is was the Keeper of the Family. I got my strong determined strength of character from her. She was what I called wise.
You Learned to be Proud
I was lucky enough to have been able to sit as a child and listen to my Grandparents talk and tell their stories. They passed down to me knowledge I had never used before but I would use it now. I also knew the value of the land and that my God-given body was a holy temple. My body could heal itself given proper food and nutrition. I could almost feel them talking to me again in my hour of need.
This body wasn’t done for and over the hill, It had yet begun to even understand what it means to be alive.
A Healthier Lifestyle…
I knew I needed a healthier lifestyle and began to re-learn nutrition. During the 1980’s I had become an avid fan of the new low-fat, low-salt, and high carbohydrate diet fad craze. The diet was later adopted by the Government in its Food Pyramid and became the Standard American Diet (SAD). I had basically been eating that diet since the 1980’s.
I now realized there was something wrong with that diet. It may be exactly what made me sick in the first place. Even though I knew all about the Standard American Diet (SAD), I didn’t really know very much about food and nutrition. I mean real food and real nutrition, the kind of food my Grandparents ate. Not the kind of food made in a laboratory or factory.
People during my Grandparents time may have gotten sick and died, but they didn’t have food Allergies or sensitivities like we have. They didn’t have anywhere near the number of and type of illness we have, like Alzheimer’s, ADHD, Dementia, or even Diabetes. They didn’t even know what cholesterol or the inside of a Doctors office was.
They simple died of old age not zombie like in a Nursing Home with a ton of medications but at home probably peaceably in their own beds asleep. They may be senile and forget your name and fall asleep in their chair after dinner but common Sense was common then. It was based on proof not elaborate hard to pronounce evasive words that come from latest blind research study.
Lifestyle and Diet Changes
A word about Diet
I don’t believe in diets. The last one was diet enough. I didn’t use any to get well and don’t plan to use one in the future. I did look at diets like Atkins, Gluten Free, Paleo etc. I studied the diet but I trusted my body to tell me what It needed to eat. I consider most diets gimmicks to sell books and make someone else rich. This society may need someone to tell them what to do but I don’t. I will figure it out by myself if necessary.
I also don’t rely on food labels like Organic, or Gluten Free. The Organic label may be necessary but not for everything. Instead, I would go to the farm, see how the food was grown, see the same food picked fresh and for sale at the local Farmers stand or market. Oh I would go outside and pick my own food from my garden.
Fresh food doesn’t have any labels, terms like Organic are government labels.
The Farmer has an elaborate pile of red paper tape to fill out to use the term Organic. It has nothing to do with the food except to mean hopefully it isn’t GMO but I don’t know if you can really trust that.
Nothing wrong with labels it is just that I rather judge the food myself in many cases with the dirt still on.
First Steps
It all started from article my neighbor’s had received from her friend’s son on Coconut Oil. I was familiar with homeopathic medicine and for years subscribed to Dr. Mercola and the Health Ranger’s newsletters. So this article wasn’t any real surprise for me. I expanded on it by getting the book quoted in the article. Stop Alzheimers Now by Dr. Fife
Contrary to the books tittle it is a very comprehensive book on nutrition. Real Nutrition the way it should be taught. Nutrition with the importance of understanding the role of different kinds of food and how your body uses it to maintain health or to heal.
Dr. Fife’s book is very well written and crammed packed with tons of very worthwhile information. It took me some time to really comprehend his teachings. But suddenly the blinders fell off and I could see a clear road ahead.
The First Steps I Took to Regain my Body and My Health:
- Learned to slow down listen and hear. “Chew Your Food”. I used chewing nuts and dried cranberries to break my addictions to cigarettes, drinking and eating lots and lots of sugar.
- Finding Coconut Oil and the importance or saturated fat and increasing Omega 3 Fats while decreasing Omega 6 Fats. I had coconut oil on everything even my pet cat. I remember thinking it simply help me put out the fire and calm down.
- and Stop eating processed Salt and discovering the importance of minerals with the addition of Himalayan sea salt with its 84 minerals including iodine and magnesium
- Replacing Sugar with “Green Leaf”’s natural Stevia product
- I slowly broke my addiction to carbs but once I broke my addictions, I learned to how communicate with my own body. I turned off my thinking brain and used my re-discovered taste buds. I found is a well-known and successful treatment in both Ayurveda and Chinese tradition medicine.
- Even though, the pressure was on to return to work I had enough sick leave and time to take it very slowly a step at a time a cell at a time. I didn’t get sick in a day and I wouldn’t get well in a day either. Your body needs time to adjust to both good behavior and bad.
Steps taken while learning about New Nutrition
While reading Dr. Fife’s book, I did some additional research into Dr. Mercola’s nutrition plan and his book Take Control of Your Health.
First Diet Change
Fat does not cause fat and I stopped counting calories, cholesterol and RDA’s, Once I broke my addictions, I ate what my body told me it wanted. It took me a while to really understand the harm of sugar and carbohydrates and to stop eating them. Without the blinders I began to see and understand many things.
Second Diet change was to learn to read the nutrition label
Nutrition Label
I began to unravel its technical mambo jumbo food police’s dogma (also called rules) by learning to read and understand food labels. I ignored terms like “Balanced Diet” based on Recommended Daily Food Alliances (RDA’s) and other control terms. I became a food misfit and disobey the food police’s RDA and limits.
Interesting note, when you are looking at the food label to determine how high in sugar the food is, you also have to pay attention to the amount of carbohydrates which also convert instantly to sugar. You have to add the amount of sugar and carbs together.
The amount of dietary fiber., is also very important. Try to to get the highest fiber content number you can tolerate. You can subtract total fiber from total carbohydrates.
I found the more fiber I took the less processed carbohydrates I was eating.
My New Rules
I developed my own set of rules:
Intake of saturated fat is not limit eat as much as you want,
eat as much Sea Salt especially with natural minerals.
number 3 should include Carbohydrates and Sugar not Saturated Fat and get as much Dietary Fiber as you can tolerate.
I never ever again touched any food that had a label which read:
“Artificial, Diet, fat-free, High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), hydrolyzed fat, low-fat, Natural, Corn, or Vegetable Oil (Crisco)” also Monosodium Glutamate (MSG): Looking at the label you will probably not find the words MSG instead, the FDA Allows, 20 other pseudo names for it including autolyzed yeast extract, calcium casinate, free glutamate, glutamic acid, hydrolyzed corn, hydrolyzed soy protein, soy lecithin and many others.
I refused most things colored white like white flour, potatoes, salt, starch, sugar, or anything processed or made in the lab. Except, of course, Coconut Oil but that isn’t made in a lab it fell off a tree.
I refused to eat anything that had any of the following on the label:
More than 5 ingredients listed, more than two chemicals I couldn’t pronounce.
What is a Superfood?
The next thing I came up with was to eat mostly Super Foods. What is a Super Food?
Super foods – Foods that are loaded with a combination of critical fatty acids, anti-oxidant phytonutrients and essential amino acids. Almonds, Apples, Avocado, Beans, Berries (Blueberries, Blackberries, Raspberries, and Strawberries), Broccoli, Coconut, Dark Chocolate, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Flaxseed, Garlic, Honey, Kale, Nuts like Almonds, and Walnuts. Olives, Onions, Papaya, Pomegranate, Spinach, Soy, Salmon (Wild caught), Tea, and Tomatoes.
As I was doing research, I would find articles about superfoods. Eating the food was part of my research. I would then write the article. on all that I had found. I haven’t covered all superfoods but have many of the major ones.
Water
The next very important step was water
I remember when bottled water was first introduced. I never thought it would become the big fad it has. People don’t even think of using Tap water. I did join in and have plenty of bottle water. But the more I began to understand toxins I began to feel funny about the plastic water bottle. I started to investigate toxins in water, including chlorine and fluoride. I found that the manufacture of bottle water like the manufactures of all bottled drinks like alcohol are not required to label its contents.
You could be drinking anything including tab water which has fluoride added. The bottle may have pretty pictures on it but you will never know what you’re actually drinking.
I refused bottled water and filtered the ( www.friendsofwater.com)chlorine or chloramines, and fluoride out of my own tap water. Not only the water you drink but the other million and one uses of water like bathing and washing include these harmful toxins. I even filtered the garden hose for my garden needed the benefit of chlorinated free water also. Chlorine is bleach, and bleach is extremely destructive to the human digestive system. Fluoride is also extremely destructive especially to the brain.
I Had to Learn to Grow Things and Cook.
I was on a steep learning curve but I also had to learn how to grow the food, then cook the food. I started by eating most of my vegetables raw. I was eating things like red leaf lettuce which can be eaten raw. But there are many raw vegetables that need some slight steaming to become easier to chew. I also wanted meat and I found grass-fed chicken and beef including fresh eggs from the farm.
I had a very limited budget, and had limited vacation and sick leave and had to get back to work — soon. Things like homeopathic programs, exercise and coaching, juicing was way too expensive for me. I would therefore have got well on my own – naturally.
I Learn to Eat Seasonal.
If you’re going to eat real natural food then you will have to eat the food close to where it has been grown. I don’t mean the word “Natural” as printed on the food label for it isn’t anymore natural then the cardboard the label is printed on.
I live in the Northeast, there is something eerie about a tomato in the grocery store in December. It isn’t real and it taste that way. We may be brainwashed but nature provides food all year-long.
There is summer food and winter food. We all know about the great food of summer. Winter is another story but nature provides with things like winter squash and roots are perfect examples. The orange Halloween pumpkin and the rest of the squash family last well into February in cold storage. I even freeze my berries and have fruit every day all year-long. There is even sprouting or fermenting to get through the winter.
A Word about Fermentation
I increased natural food which are loaded with life saving antioxidants. Once you body is given the ammunition it needs in the form of antioxidants, it starts removing to toxins on its own. This is called Detoxing. The best way to help your body detox is to increase good bacteria by giving your immune system fermented foods. This is called probiotic or good bacteria. This includes foods pickled in salt brine.
Yeast Overgrowth and Fermentation
Unfortunately when you have yeast overgrowth you are probably already fermented and your body cannot tolerate any more acid as found in fermented foods That is when I learned the importance of taste and food nutrition. I stumbled upon bitter-tasting food. Fermented foods are considered sour not bitter.
The magic word here is KALE
A principle used in Indian Ayurvedic traditional medicine and nutrition. It is a form of biofeedback. Biofeedback is the art of paying attention to your body functions or physiology. You don’t need expensive elaborate machinery or CAT or MRI scans you simply have to learn to listen and feel your body talk to you. I found I communicated with my body through my taste buds.
Your Body is always talking to you. We may not listen, but it’s always reporting about what is going on. The less you pay attention the more your body will respond with pain. That is how it tries to tell you something is wrong. Many of us have become so politically correct we have learned to overpower the system and simply not listen. What happens then? You feel less you just get sicker and weaker as each year passes. Your doctor puts you on an unlimited amount of medicines to the point you don’t feel a thing. Nothing you don’t even dream anymore. You have become what I call a “pill taking Zombie”. I know I was one.
There are many bitter foods Bitter Lemon, Hops, Lemon and Kale to name a few. Bitters stimulate the digestive system and strengthens the stomach’s needed hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric acid is used by your system to break down food into nutrition that provides the energy your body needs to function.
It Became A Hobby
As my body started to respond, I was overwhelmed and kind of scared by these sudden cravings. In time it became a fun hobby. I was becoming more in-tune to my body for it would let me know almost right away if something was working or not.
Our bodies are constantly maintaining a delegate balance. It is a 24-7 activity. It is called homeostasis. It maintains this balance by what it has on hand. If you eat it, it uses it. If your body needs something to maintain this balance it uses your taste buds to tell you.
Natural Detoxing
As my body was naturally detoxing, my strength was returning. I suddenly I suffered a major setback.
Pain unbelievable pain. Forth of July fireworks kind of pain first in my knees’ then it slowly moved to my hips, then to my back both lower and under the shoulders. I had tremendous pain just by standing up. If I waited a few minutes my muscles would adapt and I could walk. But I was in constant pain.
Buried Toxins and Candida Kill
In order to continue living, my body kept adjusting. It would bury the toxins out of harms way. The longer I ate toxins the deeper my body would bury them. In most cases you live pain-free and unaware that your body is really filled full of toxins. As in my case I would ignore the warning signs or get my annual fix of antibiotics. I had some pain but it was soon suppressed and I would live on until one day I got very very sick and couldn’t ignore it any longer.
When I began to eat real food with real antioxidants my body began to detox on its own. It began by removing these toxins a layer at a time. When your body Kills Candida, the Candida will release up to 80 different toxins itself. Your body then has to contend with even more toxins. You may experience sever symptoms and feel worse than when you started like I did. Some people don’t feel anything at all – lucky them.
This is called Candida Kill. From what I have researched, there really isn’t a way to avoid the release of these toxins. You have to learn to work them out and over time win the battle.
But as time has gone by and more people have begun to write about this and there are ways to help your body detox and help minimize the effect of released toxins. When I was first getting started over 3 years ago there wasn’t a great deal of help. I was in uncharted territory. No one was talking about Yeast and candida.
The only thing I can say is — it is worth it — I may not feel like a kid in my 20’s but not a day over 40. I will spend some time in the future on what I found about Candida Kill help such as taking activated charcoal or things like Caprylic acid, Psyllium and Bentenite Clay liquid internally plus many anti fungal herbs that can help. Look up these products and read the manufacture’s labels.
While Detoxing I learned other Things.
I learned other things in the process, how to handle pain using only homeopathic remedies, how to help the lymph system circulate even when you are too weak to move and it hurts to stretch. Just eating food helped but it wasn’t enough. I had to figure out what else to do and I spent hours on the internet.
Never stop trying, even though some days it seemed almost hopeless.
List of Foods not to eat – Grocery Store NoNo Foods
This may not be a complete list, I’m sure I have forgotten something.
Anything marked low-fat or diet – Products market called “diet” or “low-fat” such as aspartame (Equal), scalars (Splenda), Vegetable Oil (Crisco), artificial butter, salt, sugar
Diet, Low-Fat, and Fat-Free are not natural they are full of chemicals created in the lab.
Bread especially white bleached bread, Bottled water, Processed Carbohydrates (bad carbs), Breakfast Cereals, Canola Oil, Only locally grown corn (farmer’s own seed not GMO), Convenience foods, Low Fat foods, GMO’s, Process Grains, Margarine, mayonnaise, non grass fed meat, non seasonal food, Pickles, Salad Dressing, Orange Juice, Process Foods, Processed Salt, Artificial Sugar, Standard American Diet (SAD), anything with added sugar, Sweets like cake, cookies, Trans Fat Oils, Vegetable Oil, White Distilled vinegar and anything with added sugar, Sweets like cake, cookies, Trans Fat Oils, Vegetable Oil, White Distilled vinegar and anything fermented or pickled with white vinegar, and Grocery Store Yogurt,
limit process white anything like pasta, rice, sugar, salt and many others
“Diet” anything. Many so-called “diet” products on the market today contains artificial sweeteners like aspartame (Equal) and sucralose (Splenda)
Alphabetical List of Foods I used to get well Yes Yes Foods
Again this is the list as I remember it I may have missed a few, but these are the major foods. I have eaten these food and use them often in my diet.
These Foods are either high in fat, high in natural free radical antioxidants and/or high in minerals and low in bad carbs, processed salt, and/or sugar.
Fats and Oils
Balance Omega 3 fats and Omega 6 Omega 3 fats. In other words increase Omega 3 and decrease Omega 6.
Saturated Fat – Butter, Natural Cocoa nut, Coconut Oil, Fish Oil in the form of supplements are good but be very careful for these supplements easily turn rancid (Cod Liver Oil Carlson’s lemon-flavored liquid cod liver oil, or Fish Oil, Krill Oil), Eggs, Ghee, All Nuts, most seeds
Polyunsaturated Fat – Olive Oil, Avocado, Sesame
Grass Fed meat especially organ meats not smoked or vacuum packed
FISH Wild Caught
Anchovies
Herring
Mackerel
Sardines
Wild salmon
Wild salmon and sardines do contain ocean contaminants, but in much lower amounts than other seafood. Buy these fish fresh or canned packed water.
Wild Tuna Wild Caught like Skip Jack Fresh if you can find it but Canned in water
Wild salmon and sardines do contain ocean contaminants, but in much lower amounts than other seafood. Buy these fish fresh or canned packed water.
Wild Tuna Wild Caught like Skip Jack Fresh if you can find it but Canned in water
Fruits
Low Fructose Fruit like Berries (blackberry, blueberry, cranberry, raspberry, etc) , Tart Cherries, Grapefruit, Lemon
Food High in Minerals such as Iodine, Magnesium, Zinc,
Berries
Nuts
Sea Salts.
Sea Weed
seeds
Spices and Herbs
Herb Tea
Hot Pepper
Turmeric
SWEETENERS
Stevia
Xylitol
Stevia and xylitol can be used in place of sugar and they have a much smaller effect on your blood sugar levels. They will break down slowly not causing the sugar low, high roller coaster of processed foods
List of Superfoods
The term Superfoods means they are nutrient dense. I have several listed but there are many more.
Aloe Vera
Avocado
Beans
Beet
Berry (blueberry, cranberry, raspberry, etc.)
Bitters Lettuces and other plant natural food with a bitter taste
Cacao bean or cocoa bean (Natural chocolate)
Cayenne or Red hot pepper
Carrot
Cinnamon
Coconut
Egg
Garlic
GrapeFruit
Grass-fed meat beef, chicken , etc.
Herbs and Spices
Kale
Onion Red
Olive
Lemon
Lettuce is naturally bitter including the King of Green Kale
Mushrooms
Mustard
Nut (Walnut, Almond, etc.)
Natural Sea Salt including Himalayan
Onion especially the Red Onion
Quinoa
Root vegetables
Salmon – wild caught
Sardines can only be wild can never be caught
Seeds
Sprouts
Stevia (Green Leaf)
Turmeric
Vinegar not white distilled
Yam
Winter Squash
Remember I do not practice a diet I just ask the expert my body if It likes it I eat it. We haven’t tried eating bugs yet but you never know.
Till Next Time
Sources
http://www.naturalnews.com/049269_easter_candy_Candida_probiotics.html
http://www.treelight.com/health/nutrition/Fermentation.html17
http://www.naturalnews.com/053030_farmacies_natural_healing_drug-free_medicine.html
Dr. Blaylock’s books
